Mom and Dad originally picked a different 50 for 50. We were going to do a thing called the Pan Am Experience, which looks cool and fun and retro and TOTALLY discriminates against single people, because they only sell tickets in pairs, and if you haven't noticed there's only one of me, and Jasmine doesn't travel well. This required a change in plans, but since Pan Am Experience INITIALLY led us on about the single ticket thing, I really didn't have much left on the list when I realized we would not, in fact, be dining in First Class on a plane that no longer exists, and I was all, "Screw it. Let's road trip to one of those canyons you like."
So mom picked a canyon; I flew in last night; and this morning we got up bright and early (for me) and headed off on a five-hour drive into the Navajo Nation and --
-- I'm pretty sure I've never been on Navajo land before. I've definitely been on tribal land. As a tourist, I've done a lot of First Nations stuff in Canada and Alaska. And even here in Arizona. But I don't think I've been on Navajo land. It's something you notice because the Navajo go on Daylight Savings while Arizona does not; so you're cruising down the highway and all of a sudden your phone takes note of a time change because you are In A Very Real Way not in Arizona anymore.
On the way, we stopped at a rest stop which claimed to pride itself on having the cleanest restrooms on the I-40. Now, as it was the ONLY restroom break we had off the I-40, I can't really make any evaluation of the truth of that statement. I can, however, report that IF these were, IN FACT, the cleanest restrooms on the I-40, the bar is not that high.
We grabbed some soft serve at what looked like the World's Smallest Burger King (wedged in the corner of the rest stop, it was somewhat misleadingly advertised as a Food Court -- dude, one fast food place does not make a food court) and got some soft serve ice cream. Mom immediately commented that Cleanest Restrooms On The I-40 should, in fact, be the title of my 50-for-50. I replied that we'd have to take the selfie.
Back on the road to the canyon, our first destination was a stop at the Hubbell Trading Post which is a National Historic Site, and the place was actually taken over by the National Park Service a number of years back. It is very cool in that it is simultaneously still a legit functioning trading post and also a place with a visitors' center where you can learn about America's history with the Navajo people (hint: we don't come off too well in it). One of the rangers gave us a quick tour of the Hubbell house, which was made all the more amusing by the fact that we had to wear them little protective booties over our shoes so as not to damage the Extremely Pricey Navajo rugs in there. The IDEA of protective booties wasn't so funny -- it was the FACT that these booties came out of a big box of used, dirty booties, and if they managed to protect the rugs from any sort of dirt it was more from luck than actual, y'know, cleanliness. Historic house was pretty cool, though.
When we got back to the Visitors' Center, we had a chat with a second ranger, who was himself Navajo. (I was tipped off when he talked about the stuff Mr. Hubble had done for "us." Damn, pronouns are helpful.) Basically, after The Long Walk (about which America should be seriously ashamed), the Navajo returned to these lands, but there was nothing there. Hubbell set up the trading post and enabled the Navajo people to get the raw supplies they needed to restart living off the land. And 150 years later, there are still Navajo people bringing in rugs they have woven and trading them for standard General Store supplies. (And then the rugs are turned around a sold to tourists. Everybody wins.)
We continued on to our actual destination: Canyon de Chelly. The Navajo ranger at the trading post said he was also a ranger over here at the canyon, so we asked him if he had any recommendations. He told us to drive out to a certain lookout at 7:30 tonight.
Dinner (about which the less said the better -- except the Navajo Fry Bread, which was all kinds of yummy and proves that people are truly the same because every culture has its own version of tasty fried bread) took a bit longer than we'd thought. We tried to make a run for the lookout by 7:30, but we weren't going to make it. It looked seriously dark. But when we happened to glance behind us, we saw what the ranger had been getting at -- a genuinely extraodinary sunset. I'm not just talking colors here, but the way the sun was reflecting off the clouds made the sky look like a landscape. Seriously. It looked like ocean and land and horizon, even though it was all just sky, and it was fucking glorious. I took a picture, but it so completely failed to capture it, I'm not even bothering to post it. Trust me on this one: you had to be there.
And... back to the hotel to get some sleep before the actual canyon tomorrow.
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